Revisiting my article writing case study.

July 31, 2007

So I'm doing my video review of Matt Callen's HyperVRE software (which I'll be sending out in a couple of days), and in the process I revisited the article writing case study that I put together last fall.

In that case study, I wrote 5 articles and did nothing else to advertise a site that I had built, following the results for one month (which were great). Well, I compiled the case study into a PDF report for Matt to send to his list to show the power of my Instant Article Wizard software.

That made me curious. I wondered if that site was still getting any traffic, so I checked out my stats, and WOW! What a surprise! The site is freedogtraining.net, and it's a 5 day mini-course on how to train your dog. In the "about the author" links of my articles, I (mostly) used the keywords "free dog training".

Do a search for "free dog training" at Google, and notice which site is ranking #8. Yup, that's me.

I checked the site's stats, and sure enough, I'm getting good traffic from those keywords. Ha! So I checked my signups and, sure enough, I've gotten hundreds more since the case study was done.

That site, which I'd long since forgotten about, has been quietly growing in its rankings and traffic, and collecting more and more email addresses from people, and making sales of its back-end product — all from writing and distributing just 5 unique articles on the subject matter.

The site is still getting traffic from EzineArticles.com and GoArticles.com as well, many months later. So is writing and distributing unique articles a great way to build traffic to your web site? My site's #8 ranking, traffic logs and signup rate are proof that it is indeed. It's a long term strategy that really works!

If I accomplished that much by writing only 5 articles, imagine how much you could accomplish by cranking out dozens (or hundreds) of articles using Instant Article Wizard!

Please leave your comments about this below.

Posted by Jonathan Leger | Filed Under Search Engine Optimization, Blog | 52 Comments

Like what you see? Then subscribe to Marketing Insiders and reap big benefits!

By subscribing to my free Marketing Insiders email list, you will regularly receive special member-only insider information, discounts and freebies. You will also be notified when new articles are posted here at the blog.

It's absolutely free to subscribe, and you can leave the list at any time.

For subscribing today, I will give you a valuable free gift as well!

Why I don't promote the big launches.

July 20, 2007

If you're like me, you're on a few marketers' lists, and your inbox fills up fast with emails promoting the same product(s) when a big launch happens in the world of Internet Marketing. But if you've been on my list for any amount of time, you may have noticed that I don't promote most of these "big" launches. I wanted to tell you why.

One primary reason is that I know I wouldn't personally use any of those products. I don't mean they aren't of value to some people, just not to me.

If the product is software, as a programmer I usually feel I can do a better job if I create the application myself. This allows me to customize it for my own use, add features I want, etc. There are a few exceptions where I feel the software is truly stellar and can be used "as-is", but I usually don't feel that way.

Most of the informational products I see being promoted are just rehashes of the same-ol'-same-ol'. I'm not interested in promoting a product that teaches people what everyone already knows, or can find out for free just by doing a few searches online. Sometimes a product compiles so much information into one place, or presents it in such a good way, that it is actually worth having. But it's rarely done so well that it's worth paying for if you can find it for free elsewhere.

Another reason I don't promote most of the big launches is that I haven't taken the time to use and properly review the product.

I will never promote something that I have not personally used and found beneficial, so you won't get emails from me about these products. Unfortunately, it seems that many marketers don't mind promoting things they've never really used or reviewed for quality. Short term, you might make some money from this practice, but long term it's a bad idea.

Even if you ignore the ethical considerations of promoting something you've never used (and I don't think you should ignore them), if your contacts buy a product on the power of your recommendation and find out the product is junk, will they trust your next recommendation? Likely they will not.

So you weaken your credibility with your list if you promote products you haven't used or reviewed properly. Eventually your list will stop listening to you at all, and will be a worthless commodity.

Finally, I am usually very busy working on my own projects and products, and simply don't have time to look into what's being offered by everyone else and present it to my list. More and more I'm learning toward creating desktop software and web-based services that serve the needs of the general webmaster community — not just internet marketers.

The obvious reason for doing this is that a much larger group of people will find the products useful. For example, my Instant Article Wizard software, while very useful for internet marketers, is of use to anybody who owns and operates a commercial web site. And my latest project, 3WayLinks.net, is also useful to anyone who wants their web site to rank well in Google.

It just makes sense for you to focus on what you're good at. For me, that's producing powerful, easy to use software that helps the entire webmaster community.

I really think there are some lessons to be extracted here:

Don't promote a product that you could do a better job on yourself.
If it's an informational product, and you feel you could write it better, create it yourself and promote that to your list. They'll appreciate having a better quality product, and you'll get to keep 100% of the revenue instead of just the affiliate commission.
Don't promote products you've never used or don't think are top-notch.
Short term, this unethical practice will earn you some money, but long term you're only hurting the value of your list.
Focus your time on what you're good at — it will pay better.
If you're good at affiliate marketing and promoting other people's products, that's fine, but if your talents could better be used in creating your own useful tools and products, that will make you more money in the long run. If you're just promoting what everybody else is, what sets you apart as being different–and better–then they are? Why should people stay on your list at all?

I'd love to know what you think. Please post your comments below.

Posted by Jonathan Leger | Filed Under Internet Marketing, Blog | 37 Comments

Like what you see? Then subscribe to Marketing Insiders and reap big benefits!

It's absolutely free to subscribe, and you can leave the list at any time.

For subscribing today, I will give you a valuable free gift as well!

My new linking system is a smash hit success!

July 10, 2007

Did you get my email outlining the incredible success of my new linking system? What do you think? Have questions? Comments? Leave your thoughts and comments on this blog post!

Posted by Jonathan Leger | Filed Under Search Engine Optimization, Blog | 60 Comments

Like what you see? Then subscribe to Marketing Insiders and reap big benefits!

It's absolutely free to subscribe, and you can leave the list at any time.

For subscribing today, I will give you a valuable free gift as well!